Three Things About Elsieby Joanna Cannon

There are three things you should know about Elsie. The first thing is that she’s my best friend. The second is that she always knows what to say to make me feel better. And the third thing…might take a bit more explaining. Eighty-four-year-old Florence has fallen in her flat at Cherry Tree Home for the Elderly. As she waits to be rescued, she wonders if a terrible secret from her past is about to come to light. If the charming new resident i...

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Reviews Three Things About Elsie

Simon1970-01-01

Anyone who knows me will know how much I loved Joanna’s debut, I loved this even more. It’s about getting old, it’s about being young, it’s about the ripples our lives leave, the stories we tell ourselves and each other. It’s also about finding those long seconds that make a difference and all through the eyes of Florence and those around her living in sheltered accommodation. Broke my heart a bit and I loved it all the more for doing s...

Angela M1970-01-01

3.5 stars rounded up.Sad, funny at times and what feels like a realistic portrait of aging and memory loss and loneliness, this story is also about the beauty of friendship. There’s a mystery to be solved, just as in her debut novel, The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, except this time the amateur sleuths are octogenarians and not young girls. Eighty four year old Florence has fallen in her flat at the Cherry Tree Home, an assisted living facilit...

Cheri1970-01-01

4.5 Stars"Where've you been? ""I've looked for you forever and a day.""Where've you been?""I'm just not myself when you're away.""No, I'm just not myself when you're away." -- ”Where’ve You Been,”Kathy Mattea, Songwriters: Don Henry / Jon VeznerIn Cannon’s debut novel, The Trouble with Goats and Sheep two young girls seek to solve a mystery of sorts, and in Three Things About Elsie there is also a mystery that two women seek to solve, but...

Dem1970-01-01

3.5 Stars This was BBC Radio 2 Book club read for January and I have enjoyed many of of the reads on this list. Three things about Elsie is sentimental, witty and a charming read about ageing, memory loss and friendship.The novel opens with the main character, 84 year old Florence lying on the floor of her flat in a sheltered accommodation village, While she awaits for help she starts to reminisce about things that have happened in her life and h...

Debra1970-01-01

Florence is an 84-year-old woman living in the Cherry Tree home for the elderly. She has fallen and is lying on the floor waiting to be rescued. She is thinking about what will happen when the emergency personnel arrive. She is also thinking about a secret from her past and what will happen when that secret has become known. Florence has a lot on her mind, she has recently been put on probation at the home by the director, Miss Ambrose. Florence ...

Helene Jeppesen1970-01-01

What a precious and heart-warming story! “Three Things about Elsie” starts out with Florence lying alone on the floor in her home for elderly people. No one seems to ever find her, so she has a lot of time to reflect back on her life and she takes us readers along with her on those reminiscenses. This novel is a combination of a mystery and a humorous account of what it’s like to live your last years of life. The mystery part starts when a ...

Jennifer ~ TarHeelReader1970-01-01

4 friendship stars to Three Things About Elsie! ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ Before I start the review, you should know that I have an affinity for the number three. Sometimes I notice I have three of the same item in my grocery cart, or when I buy something I really, really like, I want to have three of it- a back-up, and one more back-up for good measure. I never take this too far, but the number three is fun for me. A bonus! 😂 So when I saw the title Th...

Karen1970-01-01

I finished this book after skimming through large parts of it because I had figured out the one important thing about Elsie very early on. Elsie is Florence’s best friend for the past thirty years and helps her to remember things along the way. Florence is 84 years old, lives in an assisted living home, has fallen and is waiting to be found and for an ambulance and is thinking about recent developments in her lifeThere is a mystery involved als...

Jennifer1970-01-01

Nopity nope nope nope. Apart from its patronizing tone and blaring sentimentality, this book’s major drawback is that it impedes its own goals. Video review here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-U7R...

Gary1970-01-01

After reading and enjoying the debut novel,The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by author Joanna Cannon I jumped at the chance of reading this novel. This book just got better and better and on finishing left me reflecting on what I had just read. Without giving anything away I was blown away by the ending.This book is not typical of my normal genre, I normally favour thrillers that are sometimes gruesome, but this book is sentimental, funny and a lo...

Chrissie1970-01-01

So did I like this? Well, sort of. I am wavering between two and three stars.There are some really good lines--some humorous, some perceptive and philosophically wise. It was the lines that drew me to the book from the start and what I most like having now finished it. For me though, some lines that first struck me as clever, pithy and wise lost their brilliance by the book's end because they had been repeated just too many times. You can overdo ...

Emer 1970-01-01

I'm somewhat torn as to my rating. This was so frustratingly cliched but it also had a purity of emotion... Those last few pages really got me. But before that I was irritated by the obviousness of the plot devices that were used to tell Florence's story. If this book hadn't been so keen on attempting to shroud aspects of the characters in mystery and had purposefully let the reader in on the reveal from the start then I think this might have wor...

Lisa1970-01-01

I love this story. As it's not a conventional read it is difficult to categorise but if you think nostalgic cosy drama with a bit of a mystery and some dark comedy that should cover it!I don't want to spoil anything so I'll say no more except that I highly recommend this one.I read 'The trouble with goats and sheep' by this author last year and loved it too - this one has a similar feel although it's a completely different story but if you liked ...

Dannii Elle1970-01-01

This is my eighth book read in the Women's Prize for Fiction longlist.My heart is forever broken!

Gumble's Yard1970-01-01

Longlisted for the 2018 Women's Prize for fiction.Joanna Cannon’s second book after her best-selling debut novel The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, which I seem to have been almost alone in strongly disliking, according it one of my rare 1* ratings, a review which concluded with a list of what I saw as “The Trouble with The Trouble with Goats”https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...This is her follow up novel – a novel which, given my expe...

Michael1970-01-01

If there is one theme that is a prominent crossover from Joanna Cannon's debut novel The Trouble with Goats and Sheep is something missing. But while we were dealing with a missing women in book one, here we are presented with a woman losing herself as memory fades. Set in an old people’s home, Three Things About Elsie explores the uncertain middle ground between life and death in an enclosed setting.Opening the story to find our main protagoni...

Jules1970-01-01

This author’s first book, The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, caught my attention with its intriguing title. This time, Three Things About Elsie lured me in with its tasty Battenberg cake cover. It makes me think of my childhood, of saving the marzipan until last, of not having a gluten intolerance. I knew I just had to read this book too, and not just because I wanted to eat the cover.For me, Three Things About Elsie felt like a combination of J...

Sherri Thacker1970-01-01

I didn’t love this book but I did enjoy the book overall. Parts of the book dragged but at the end, it all came together, as I was hoping it would. Dementia is such a sad, terrible disease and I know what it’s like, with my mother in an assistant living place living with it. This book made me think of her and all the residents I talk to when I go there to visit her. They love to talk about the old days and who knows if what they are saying is...

Claire McAlpine1970-01-01

Elsie is Florence's (Flo) best friend. The book is all about Flo and begins with her lying on the floor having had a fall, she's waiting for someone to arrive, she lives in a self contained apartment within a restirement home. She imagines who might come first, what they might say, the ambulance ride to the hospital. Every few chapters are interspersed with a chapter that is labelled with the time, the first chapter is 4.48pm and the last chapter...

Kate (GirlReading)1970-01-01

Three Things About Elsie was a surprising yet heartfelt and gentle story, with lovable characters and a mystery that kept me turning its pages.

Lindsay1970-01-01

Three Things About Elsie is filled with some lovely touches of humour, poignancy, and perceptive observations on life.As well as this, it invites the reader into a mystery regarding a man from our main character Florence's past.Florence is in her eighties and living in managed accommodation for the elderly. Elsie is her best friend - this is the first of the three things about her. As the book commences, Florence has fallen in her flat, and she i...

Maria Chnoic1970-01-01

"..but love paper-aeroplanes where it pleases. I have found that it settles in the most unlikely of places, and once it has, you're left with the burden of where it has landed for the rest of your life."The three things about Elise are that: She is Florence’s best Friend. She always knows the right thing to say and Well, I instinctively understood the third thing about Elise from the beginning. But some of you may not until the end. And as Flo...

Emma1970-01-01

Oh, this book, this lovely lovely book. There are books that move us beyond words. Books that set up home in our hearts. Books that make you see the world that little bit differently. Those are the books that are truly special and ‘Three Things About Elsie’ is one of those books. It is a book that is as wonderful to read as it is to look at. It brought tears to my eyes and joy to my heart. Thank you Joanna Cannon, for bringing Florence, Elsie...

Marianne1970-01-01

“We explored pockets of the past. Favourite stories were retold, to make sure they hadn’t been forgotten. Scenes were sandpapered down to make them easier to hold. When we walked about the war, we didn’t mention the loss and the fear and the misery; we talked about the friendships instead, and the strange solidarity that is always born of making do. There were people missing from our conversations, and others were coloured in and underlined...

Eric Anderson1970-01-01

There a special delight in having read an author’s debut novel when it first came out, then reading her follow up novel and discovering common themes and patterns which occur in fascinating variations in both books. A wonderful quality of Cannon’s writing is to create a complex picture of a community in how these networks of people both support each other and can help relieve feelings of isolation/loneliness. She describes how “There is a s...

Ferdy1970-01-01

Too slow, too predictable and not enough story. I didn't mind the characters much, they weren't anything brilliant but they were entertaining enough, although Flo was mostly a total pain.The Elsie twist was obvious right from the off, I think it was meant to be a bit of a surprise but it didn't work. What was the point of Miss Ambrose or Handy Simon's POVs? They added very little to the story and seemed so separate from Flo and company.Jack and F...

Sakshi Kathuria1970-01-01

I did not see the book eye to eye much but a good read nevertheless keeping the mystery element alluring & captivating.

Kyra Leseberg (Roots & Reads)1970-01-01

Florence and Elsie have been best friends since they were children. Their lives have been intertwined since a chance meeting on a bus and through tragedy in their adult lives.Now in their eighties, the two forever friends live at Cherry Tree, an assisted living community for the elderly. Florence has fallen in her apartment and while waiting for help to arrive she looks back over her life, sharing secrets about her past, including one she has...

Tracey1970-01-01

A beautiful book. Florence has filled my heart with fun, sadness and hope. Although not my usual genre, I'm glad I have read this.

Cathy1970-01-01

Elsie is Florence’s best friend, has been since childhood and is the person who helps Florence to remember things. Unfortunately, Florence needs quite a lot of help these days to remember things, not just from the past but in the present. Although there are some things you don’t share, not even with your best friend. Some secrets are best left tucked away where no-one can find them. However, memory can play tricks on you so the thin...

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